Chew On This

It takes two to make a wad, babe.

Its a phrase I stole from somebody a long time ago. Its used daily in my household.

We're a gum-chewin' bunch. And every single darn time someone around here gets out some, or offers some, or opens some, or asks for some, or is even just sitting around daydreaming about some, at least one of us will have to say it.

It takes two to make a wad, babe.

At which time, two pieces of gum will be chewed and enjoyed together.

The statement is so true that not only do you have to say it every time you partake in gum-chewing, you also have to actually do it. You have to chew two pieces.

And it absolutely does take that many to make a wad. Babe. The two-piece wad is better for chompin' and blowin' and poppin'. And you're a babe when you do it.

One is not enough and three is just too many.

It takes two to make a wad, babe.

The origin of this phrase goes all the way back to college.

You know how you meet and know someone for a very small amount of time but they make an impression on you in such a permanent way that it makes you think about them on a regular basis and then that permanence is passed on to your own people and then its stuck with them as well?

That is what's happened to me with Janis from Tacoma.

Miss-Janis-it-takes-two-to-make-a-wad-,babe.

She pledged the same sorority I was in at college. We never lived together. We were never particularly close. She dropped out after a year.

But Janis made an impression on people. First of all, she was never without that damn gum. She always had a wad in her mouth and a spare pack or two in her pocket. She was always giving it out. And every time she did, she'd give you two pieces. If you protested - or even if you didn't, now that I think about it - she would just simply say...well, you know.

And she was so cute chomping-away on her own wad, that you would automatically take two pieces. And then you'd find out that she was totally right.

In the short time she was there, I able to see that she had other talents besides just her gum-chewing. She was absolutely adorable with her huge bangs and her plastic hoop earrings, in the giggling, smiling way that a 19-year-old girl who doesn't care about being cool can be. She was always smiling. She stood out.

She also could be counted on for whipping-out huge posters whenever someone in the house needed one.

Janis made amazing posters. Which, in sorority life, is no small thing. Posters were needed all the time: announcing events, greeting fraternities, extolling how great we all thought we were, etc., etc.

I remember specifically one she made for the "Queen Contest" one of the other girls was competing in at one of the frats. It was a huge cartoon-likeness of the girl sitting on a half-moon, up in the sky with a beer in her hand (of course she had a beer, after all, we went to Washington State) greeting the guys in the fraternity down below.

It was beautiful.

That poster is the other thing that pops into my head - besides just Janis herself - whenever one of us says her now-famous (in my household at least) catchphrase.

My boys just knew that I had gotten the phrase from some girl I went to college with. But a while back I mentioned - while we were all enjoying some gum, naturally - that I thought she had maybe gone on to become an artist and that's when Calvin asked me to find out more about her (him being the budding artist himself).

So I contacted my best friend from the sorority, Becky. She is also from Tacoma and had known Janis in high school.

And Becky told me that Janis had died. That she had just died.

She said that it was related to alcohol. And even though she had never married and had no children, she had still gotten caught-up in taking care of everyone around her except for herself.

She was 40.

Its hard for me to try and reconcile that statement with the girl I knew from school, so smiling and happy all the time.

But then I thought about how she was always giving everybody gum. And I know it sounds silly, but now I think that she was taking care of others, even back then. Even if it was in her own small way. Making sure that we all had just enough.

My kids were totally shocked and we had quite a 'learning moment' when I told them about what had happened to Janis. But we haven't given up on the phrase. We still say it every single time. It has a slightly different feel to it now, but I know its here to stay. In fact, I can even picture grandkids with a big hunk of bubble gum in their own mouths, mumbling their way through it as well.

And I will think about Janis every single time.

It takes two to make a wad, babe.